1609, 2020

SSAI Sanglaap: Arts and Culture series

By Sunil Pun|September 16, 2020|Culture, General, India|0 comments

by Magdalen Gorringe Gorringe writes the account covering Manch UK’s Meet the Artist digital series held during the critical period of the pandemic lockdown. South Asian Dance in the Pre-Digital Era Looking at a timeline within the last forty years, it is possible to evoke a different world of South Asian dance experience in the UK that could be disparate, lonesome, and left to unforeseen circumstances. Magdalen Gorringe reflects on five migrating women artists

1609, 2020

Effects of Covid-19 on Universities: Aligarh Muslim University in Lockdown by Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

By Sunil Pun|September 16, 2020|Education, General, India, SSAI|0 comments

by Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi Had heard that every cloud has a silver lining! Aligarh Muslim University, and especially its Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences, had never been technologically savvy. Most of its Faculty, as well as its students, have always been very conservative and laid back not only in their approach to life but also at adapting to the ways of the modern world. We have always been

0907, 2020

The Language of Lockdown Arts

By Sunil Pun|July 9, 2020|Culture, Gender, General, History, India, Media|0 comments

Manch UK launches Meet the Artist Compiled by Payal Ramchandani (Kuchipudi dancer) with editorial comments by Dr Sanjukta Ghosh (SOAS South Asia Institute) During the lockdown, many artists are keen to share their personal stories on social media as the language of art could be empowering and enable one to connect with the inner world of emotions. It has been particularly difficult for dancers who are used to practising in

2104, 2020

Covid-19 in India by Avinash Paliwal and Edward Simpson

By Sunil Pun|April 21, 2020|General, India, SSAI|0 comments

Avinash Paliwal and Edward Simpson ‘You are on mute’ and ‘Once all this is over’, phrases of the pandemic. We learn to do business over the internet, and look to the future as if it were as innocent as the past. These words typify transformations – big and small – in the way we live our lives. Lockdowns, curfews and social distancing have been brought in to restrict the spread

0905, 2018

Snigdha Poonam in conversation with Edward Simpson (Director of the SOAS South Asia Institute) about her book ‘Dreamers: How Young Indians are changing the world’

By Sunil Pun|May 9, 2018|India, SSAI|0 comments

600 million Indians, more than half the population, are under twenty-five. This generation lives between extremes: more connected and global than ever, but with narrow ideas of Indian identity; raised with the cultural values of their grandparents, but the life goals of American teenagers. These dreamers are the face of a new India. Angry, and frustrated with being marginalised by both globalisation and India’s old politics, they place hope in

0905, 2018

Giulia Battaglia in conversation with Edward Simpson (Director of the SOAS South Asia Institute) about her book Documentary film in India: An anthropological history.

By Sunil Pun|May 9, 2018|History, India, Media, SSAI|0 comments

Documentary film in India: An anthropological history maps a hundred years of documentary film practices in India. It demonstrates that in order to study the development of a film practice, it is necessary to go beyond the classic analysis of films and filmmakers and focus on the discourses created around and about the practice in question. The book navigates different historical moments of the growth of documentary filmmaking in India

1112, 2017

When Music, Truly, Is Unbound: By Kunal Purohit

By Kunal Purohit|December 11, 2017|Caste, General, India, Literature, Pakistan, Politics, Religion, SSAI|0 comments

Music and poetry transcend boundaries of time, of space, of culture. This is known. But, not often does a 15th century Kabir effortlessly flow into a 20th century John Lennon creation. Or that you find, in Leonard Cohen’s work, the echoes of Asian poets from the 17th and 13th centuries. Similarly, when injustices of caste and class even in the United Kingdom find articulation in the works of Dalit poets. This, then, is when music, truly,

2408, 2017

Memories of Partition – 70 years on by Farzana Whitfield

By rk24|August 24, 2017|Conflict, Culture, India, Pakistan, Politics, Religion|0 comments

Farzana Whitfield is the subject librarian for South Asia and Development Studies at SOAS. Here she looks back on her family’s personal experience and memories of Partition. This article has previously appeared on SOAS’s library blog. This August marks 70 years of India’s independence from British rule (15th August) giving birth to 2 nations- a Hindu majority India and a Muslim majority Pakistan (14th August). Subsequently there were 3 wars between

2006, 2016

‘Africa Day’ by Simona Vittorini

By Shreya Sinha|June 20, 2016|Conflict, Education, General, India, Politics|0 comments

Simona Vittorini is a Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies where she lectures undergraduate and postgraduate courses on the comparative politics of Asia and Africa. A diplomatic crisis was narrowly averted last week in Delhi when the African Heads of Missions finally agreed to participate in the Africa Day celebrations organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) in New Delhi. A few days

2305, 2016

A Survey of Delhi Garment Workers Suggests Poverty Comes in Many Sizes

By Shreya Sinha|May 23, 2016|Development, General, India|0 comments

Alessandra Mezzadri is lecturer in Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. Her research interests focus on globalisation and processes of labour informalisation; materialist and feminist approaches to global commodity chains and global industrial systems; labour regimes, labour standards and CSR; gender and globalisation; and the political economy of India. Three years after Rana Plaza, garment workers worldwide still endure poor working conditions. The industry has witnessed several ‘minor’ disasters